Re: Becoming a "Super User" (was Re: Teach files to AppleWorks Gs)

[Toby Reiter <str4552@OBERLIN.EDU>]

On Tue, 3 Dec 1996, Douglas E. Mitton wrote:

> VERY GOOD response ... if you're not willing to invest something its
> obviously not worth learning!!!

Did I say I wasn't willing to invest anything?  My difficulty arises in 
the fact that I have picked up Apple II Technical Manuals, attempted to 
read them, and was completely overwhelmed with their complexity. I am 
not, unfortunately, necessarily intuitive in computers, at least on 
hardware and programming levels.  I have found that it is relatively easy 
to get to the level where I know about hardware on a large component 
scale (hard drives, expansion boards, configurations, etc.) but my 
knowledge of how these devices actually work or interact with the 
computer are limited. In addition, I know a little about programming (I 
am taking a class on C++ [essentially C] in college), but have no 
understanding of assembly language or the IIgs toolbox.

Basically, my plea in that post was to understand that there is a 
contingency of people who are not at the programmer level, but are also not 
at the "How do I turn this on?" or "Why won't my hard drive work on the 
built-in SCSI port on the GS?" (p.s. I do _know_ that there is no built in 
scsi port on a IIgs, it was just an example. Please don't attempt to counter 
point me with the Mark Twain GS, I'm aware of that too.)  In other words, 
people who know the answer to most questions that arise in comp.sys.apple2 
and understand very little of what is discussed in comp.sys.apple2.programmer.

It was also meant to state a very obvious problem with the post I 
responded to: most people do not have either the time or knowledge to 
program a Teach to AWGS  converter, even though it may seem trivial to many 
of the people here.